In today's digital world, the use of graphical user interfaces (GUIs) to display and manage computer information has become ubiquitous. For example, the WINDOWS™ (Microsoft Corporation, Redmond, Wash.) operating systems used in many personal computers employ a GUI desktop that displays information (e.g., text, images, etc.) for a user to view, and provides various icons or indicia with which the user may interact (e.g., a button, an Internet link, etc.). Software applications in these systems count on knowing, in advance, the position from which the user will be viewing the display screen, and will arrange and orient their graphical elements accordingly. For example, for a typical desktop computer, the applications assume that the user will be viewing the display with one particular edge being at the “top,” and will orient text and images with that orientation in mind.
New applications opened on the system assume the same orientation for the display, and present their information aligned in the same manner as other applications (e.g., they share the same understanding of “up” and “down” as other applications on the system). This allows the same user to easily and accurately see the information for the various applications. However, such arrangements may include drawbacks.